


marked

by mornen



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Blood, Death, Fear, Finnish Magic, Finnish Mythology & Folklore, Future, Ghosts, Horror, M/M, Magic, Mortality, Mythology References, Visions, myths, phantoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27336013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Beleg stands with the knife in his hand. He has marked a row of trees. He has marked a circle of trees around the hill. The knife is heavy in his hand, and his fingers are caught together with pine sap. Now the ghosts will not return, but the men will still die.He should go home. He should leave now. Túrin will be his death, as Melian said, her voice quiet.‘Beleg,’ she said. ‘If you stay with Túrin, death will not spare you.’
Relationships: Beleg Cúthalion/Túrin Turambar
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	marked

_all exiles are distinguished_   
_more important, they're not dead_

* * *

Amon Rûdh looks dead in the autumn. Still the Seregon clings to the bare rock, but the flowers have died, and only the red vines remain, with their dark green leaves shaking in the cold winds, turning a darker red than the flowers ever were.

Beleg stands beside an elm and watches the hill. He is watching the hill and the surroundings, but he finds it hard to concentrate. Winter is coming along fast, and they are not ready.

This is the Land of Bow and Helm, but that can be taken in a moment. He sees skeletons on the hill top, white against the red of the Seregon. Phantoms slide through the woods beside him, faces he knows, but now translucent, shaped too narrow, stretched too far.

They aren’t there. He shakes his head, and they disappear.

Túrin, be careful, or we’ll all wind up dead, my love.

He tells Túrin this, but Túrin stands straight with his father’s blue eyes and reckless bravery.

Beleg understands it, he really does, but still he’s seeing ghosts; they pass like smoke through the woods, red where their wounds were placed, marked with what killed them.

And the living will have to mark the trees, every tree in the whole forest, so that the ghosts know that they are dead, and they can never come home. But who will left be left to do it?

Beleg kneels on the moss. It is wet, and the cold of the wetness seeps through his leggings. He bows his head, but he does not know who to pray to.

‘Why do I love you, Túrin?’ he asks in the dark nights when the outlaws sleep and Túrin is restless beside him. ‘Why must I love you this much, Túrin?’

But he doesn’t dare ask it out loud, so Túrin never answers. But his skin is warm when Beleg takes his hand. And his eyes are bright in the dim light of fire. And he kisses Beleg, and it’s half an answer anyway.

Still the ghosts slip past him, as shaky as smoke and full of terror, marked red where they died, where they will die. He watches them until they are gone and the skeletons on the hill top are gone leaving behind only the dark vines.

Beleg weeps.

It has not happened yet. It may never happen. But he fears it, and the fear grows until it is a sitting boulder inside of his body, too big to be contained. And still he wishes for someone he could pray too, but this is the choice he has made, and he could leave if he wanted to, if he really wanted to. No one is making him stay. And many would want him to return. He would be welcomed in joy by his many friends if he went home.

But if he went home, he would cry through the night, and only one ghost would haunt him: a ghost with blue eyes and black hair and a face he once knew, twisted to only a semblance of his memory. But that ghost would never leave him, no matter how many trees he marked, no matter how much he prayed to how many gods.

So he kneels, and the wet of the ground presses against his skin, and his vision is blurred, and the hill looks like it is dripping blood, and the ghosts pass by him, pass by the unmarked trees, and he cannot tell them that they are dead, for they are not dead yet, and it is still just a fear.

‘Beleg,’ Túrin says when the fire is low and Beleg mixes his dreams with Túrin’s face. ‘You look dead when you sleep with your eyes open.’

‘Haven’t you gotten used to it by now?’ Beleg answers.

‘I didn’t feel your heart this time.’

So death hangs over them in a way that it doesn’t in Doriath. Because on the far marches, he can die, but it isn’t as likely as dying out here, in the Land of Bow and Helm, where there is nowhere to run but the hill marked forever with red. And he feels the heaviness of his fear inside of him as he stands, and the ghosts come back, hanging in the woods, feet off the ground, each one placed between the trees.

Beleg pulls out a knife and marks the first tree. And then the tree next to it. And the one after that. And the one after that. He marks them all, so that when they die, when they are slain, killed in blood, killed in pain, and their restless souls try to find a way back, they will know that they cannot return: That they are dead.

Beleg stands with the knife in his hand. He has marked a row of trees. He has marked a circle of trees around the hill. The knife is heavy in his hand, and his fingers are caught together with pine sap. Now the ghosts will not return, but the men will still die.

He should go home. He should leave now. Túrin will be his death, as Melian said, her voice quiet.

‘Beleg,’ she said. ‘If you stay with Túrin, death will not spare you.’

But if he does not stay with Túrin, Túrin will forever haunt him, and there will be no tree he could mark to make him stay away. He places his hand to his heart, knife and sap held to his breast, hearing the heartbeat that Túrin searches for, because death is the way of mortals, and they both fear that he has chosen it.

Because when Túrin cries, Beleg’s heart bleeds for him, and if that is so, there is nothing that can save him, no matter which god he chose, no matter how many prayers he cried.

He puts the knife away. He rubs dirt on his hands to remove the sap. He washes his hands in a cold running stream. He watches Amon Rûdh. There is blood on the hilltop. There is blood.


End file.
